FOLEY – Foley City Administrator Robert Barbian — now three weeks into his new position — is setting his sights on economic development.

He spent 16 years working in New Richmond as its director of development, focusing on that task and planning.

“That’s really kind of a unique specialty that I think I bring to be able to help the business community grow,” he said.

“That’s what I’m looking forward to — using my skills in planning, community development and finance to help the community in future endeavors,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of potential for the community.”

In New Richmond, he helped develop the city’s budget and worked with quality-of-life programs.

He’s looking forward to his expanded role in Foley.

“It’s a family-friendly, affordable community. That kind of impressed me, too,” he said.

He talked about helping the downtown recapture some of its growth momentum and working with Benton County as it reconstructs a highway through town.

“I want to work with industry,” Barbian said. “There’s a business park, and there’s sites available, and we want to further develop those sites.”

There are also some city-owned properties that are available.

“I think there’s growth potential in those sites,” he said. “If we roll in there the tax-increment financing districts and the use of those as a finance tool ... I think Foley has a couple of things that we can offer to a company that wants to grow, that wants to expand.”

“What we like to do, too, is home-grown business — we like to grow our own,” he said. “I can see where we’re doing that already, and I want to encourage that.”

He pointed to a business that recently located downtown.

“I’ve already talked to them about maybe doing some facade improvements,” he said, working with money from the city’s revolving loan fund.

“We’re going to work with the funds we have as well as bring additional funding to the table,” he said.

He said he’ll look to state funds, job-creation funds and infrastructure-improvement funds.

Barbian said he was aware of challenges the city has faced recently, including turnover in its department leadership.

“It sounds like there’s been quite a few past challenges, and there are some challenges ongoing that I think that we’ll work through,” he said. “I’m sure there will be challenges, but I’m looking forward to them,” he said.

This will be the first time Barbian takes a city’s top administration job, but he said that he got a lot of administrative experience in his previous job because his former supervisor loved to delegate. That’s something Barbian hopes to emulate.

“If the team can do it, then I can spend time going out and doing the development and working with businesses that want to expand and grow, whether they’re here already or from other areas,” he said.

He said he encourages citizens and the council to bring up any issues.

“What I have seen and what I have experienced ... is that there’s a lot of involvement of the community,” he said. “I think it’s a great community to be able to work in.”